I am new to this forum and am hoping to get some advice on a new project I am undertaking in the new year. I apologise in advance if you see the message in multiple forums as I am posting it in several different ones so I am able to get as much feedback as possible.

In a nutshell, I am aiming to prove or disprove whether someone with very little experience in Darts is able to make it to a professional tour with enough practise and if so how much can they actually achieve? The idea came to me after reading the book “Bounce” by Matthew Syed and having many debates with family and friends on whether talent is something you are born with or it is something learned (Nature v Nurture).

I want to make something very clear from the start and that is that I am not trying to belittle the sport in any way or say that it is easy to become professional in. To reach an elite level in any sport requires skill, hard work and sacrifice and darts is no different. The reasons why it has been chosen are listed below…

1. Individual Sport – effective practise can be done at any time without the need for teammates or a coach.
2. Played indoors – again practise can be done at any time and regardless of things such as weather.
3. Closed loop skill – the skill of throwing the dart where you want it to go is closed loop and remains very similar regardless of which part of the board you are aiming for. Therefore, all practise time can be used to master this one skill whereas in other sports there are many different things which need to be mastered.

From a young age I have always played lots of different sports with my main sport being football, which I played at a semi -professional level for many years. As a result of this I would say that I am already very well co-ordinated and have a competitive edge which I believe will dramatically reduce the number of hours needed to reach my goal.

In terms of previous experience with darts I have only ever played with friends, mainly playing fun games rather than the competition 501 format. I would probably say over the past 10 years I have played no more than 20 hours worth of the game.

For the first six months I will look to have a minimum of 2 hours of practise per day with the hope of getting closer to 20 hours per week. The aim is to show some good early progress in this time which will then lead to more and more people hearing about it and following it with interest. I would then use this to try and gain some sort of sponsorship which would allow me to practise full time and hopefully get to 35-55 hours of practise a week.

All practise will be recorded with a webcam and videos along with stats will be uploaded weekly to a blog so progress can be clearly tracked. After doing a little bit of research I came across a man called Justin Irwin who unsuccessfully attempted something similar, however, with no detailed record of practise and progress there is no way of telling what actually happened.

So now that you have a good understanding of my plans I was hoping to get some opinions from people who know a lot more about the sport than I do and even some advice on how best to go about my practise?

Getting sponsors after 6 months is probably impossible. You would need to play the Pro Tour for that, which probably requires at least a good 3-4 years dedicated practice to reach that level. There are loads of players who have been playing for many years, both in practice and tournament and don't get near that level.

I don't think I explained that in the best way, I don't mean sponsorship like the professionals have I mean more like a crowdfunding campaign or possibly people who own darts related business' who are interested to see what can be achieved.

Even without the sponsorship, if after 6 months there is good progress, I could probably move up to 4 hours per week while still working a part time hours.

I don't think I explained that in the best way, I don't mean sponsorship like the professionals have I mean more like a crowdfunding campaign or possibly people who own darts related business' who are interested to see what can be achieved.

Even without the sponsorship, if after 6 months there is good progress, I could probably move up to 4 hours per week while still working a part time hours.

If I'm being honest, I don't think you'd get much from crowdfunding. People who have been playing for longer times barely get anything out of it. And no offense but I don't think I really like people asking for money when far more talented people, who have proven themselves in competition, don't have the financial means to do the tour.

Getting sponsorship from companies or the like is fair enough but I just don't think it's realistic. You would need to convince them to support you, an average Joe really who wants to go pro, over players who have done it for years and sacrificed a lot more

If I'm being honest, I don't think you'd get much from crowdfunding. People who have been playing for longer times barely get anything out of it. And no offense but I don't think I really like people asking for money when far more talented people, who have proven themselves in competition, don't have the financial means to do the tour.

Getting sponsorship from companies or the like is fair enough but I just don't think it's realistic. You would need to convince them to support you, an average Joe really who wants to go pro, over players who have done it for years and sacrificed a lot more
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You make some valid points but without being disrespectful I think that as this is more of a study/project which is fully tracked and public I think it would gain more interest than someone who has already been playing for 5 years and is a good player but not quite good enough to push on.

I am not talking about mega money either, just enough to make it possible to commit full time. Have you heard of 'The Dan Plan'? if not its worth a little look. Someone tried something similar in Golf and gained lots of publicity for doing so. In the end he too failed but managed to get to a low of 2.6 handicap which is very impressive. Again not meaning any disrespect but i feel that golf requires the mastery of alot more skills than darts and if Dan had put the 6000+ hours into darts I rather than golf I feel he would have had every chance in making the tour.

The fact that so many people will disagree with each other over weather we think this is possible makes it so interesting and I think thats why people would possibly get behind it. I could be wrong though, maybe we will find out.

I believe this exercise has been tried before but can't remember who it was failed miserably

that Irwin bloke who had a podcast, was one and there was another guy on youtube who tried it, and there was a guy who was a writer who was from the UK and then fucked off to the USA, his name I believe was Luke Smithers. All complete disasters but had a few laughs along the way.

ffs Masteringdarts if you had half a fucking brain and spent just a few hours on forums you would realize that 98% of the posters here and everywhere are useless fucking gits when it comes to throwing darts. Add to that dart players are the stupidiest self coached morons in all of individual sports. Even participants in tiddley winks and rock paper scissors are smarter.

Lastly sounds to me like this some kind of homework for a school assignment in which case my advice is fuck off and do your own work. In the case that what you say is true there is a plethora of literature in the scientific arena written on nurture vs natural ability. My advice is do some reading to settle the debate instead of wasting a year of your life, unless of course you really enjoy playing then do it for the enjoyment.

Or the shortest route to becoming a Pro, just start calling yourself a Pro no need to prove it in darts just make the claim seems loads of other useless shits have been doing for years, just look down the roll of the BDO Lakeshite.

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I believe this exercise has been tried before but can't remember who it was failed miserably

that Irwin bloke who had a podcast, was one and there was another guy on youtube who tried it, and there was a guy who was a writer who was from the UK and then fucked off to the USA, his name I believe was Luke Smithers. All complete disasters but had a few laughs along the way.

ffs Masteringdarts if you had half a fucking brain and spent just a few hours on forums you would realize that 98% of the posters here and everywhere are useless fucking gits when it comes to throwing darts. Add to that dart players are the stupidiest self coached morons in all of individual sports. Even participants in tiddley winks and rock paper scissors are smarter.

Lastly sounds to me like this some kind of homework for a school assignment in which case my advice is fuck off and do your own work. In the case that what you say is true there is a plethora of literature in the scientific arena written on nurture vs natural ability. My advice is do some reading to settle the debate instead of wasting a year of your life, unless of course you really enjoy playing then do it for the enjoyment.

Or the shortest route to becoming a Pro, just start calling yourself a Pro no need to prove it in darts just make the claim seems loads of other useless shits have been doing for years, just look down the roll of the BDO Lakeshite.

I fully expect this to be car crash entertainment. Do keep coming back to the forum.
There have been more than a handful of people who exclaimed their intent of doing this or that in darts. Daveboy Green provided hours of entertainment for us on forums. One of my favorites tho was that scruffy ginger who kept bread of his families table and made them wait in the car while he went to some local for a tourney. He also ran car boot sales to raise money. what was that useless cunts name?

We Do Not Desire Tributes.
We Desire Information.
We Seek The Worm Drink Who Has Lately Betrayed His Nation

I fully expect this to be car crash entertainment. Do keep coming back to the forum.
There have been more than a handful of people who exclaimed their intent of doing this or that in darts. Daveboy Green provided hours of entertainment for us on forums. One of my favorites tho was that scruffy ginger who kept bread of his families table and made them wait in the car while he went to some local for a tourney. He also ran car boot sales to raise money. what was that useless cunts name?

I remember that. The tosser used to beg for a tenner on Facebook or Twitter to buy fags

When you actually feel anger over a place like this it's time to get a life

I fully expect this to be car crash entertainment. Do keep coming back to the forum.
There have been more than a handful of people who exclaimed their intent of doing this or that in darts. Daveboy Green provided hours of entertainment for us on forums. One of my favorites tho was that scruffy ginger who kept bread of his families table and made them wait in the car while he went to some local for a tourney. He also ran car boot sales to raise money. what was that useless cunts name?

I remember that. The tosser used to beg for a tenner on Facebook or Twitter to buy fags